There’s a buzz in the air around the city of Lafayette and two of its high school football programs.
People may be excited about the Acadiana Wreckin Rams playing in the Superdome, and with good reason, but the story of the weekend will be a cross-town rematch for the Division II Select state championship between St Thomas More and Lafayette Christian.
For the LCA Knights, this game is about more than winning a state championship. It’s about overcoming the biggest obstacle they’ve faced the last two seasons. Since last August, the Knights have faced off with STM three times, including the state title game last year, and they’ve come up short each time. Could the fourth time be the charm for Hunter Landry’s team?
”We need to do more,” Landry said heading into this colossal matchup. “This is the fourth time we’ll play them and we’ve come up short the previous three times, so we need more. Whatever that may look like, we need more of it. We have to be better in all aspects of the game, because they’re a really good program, not just in the area but in the state. They’ve done something right over the last 20 games or so and we know we’re going to get their best shot so we have to be ready to give them our best shot back.”
Even with the struggles against the Cougars looming, the Knights have a ton to be proud of with the success and accolades of their five-star quarterback, Ju’Juan Johnson.
“it’s been awesome,” Landry said when asked what it’s been like to work with Johnson. “He makes things a little easier for us, offensively with how special he is. My biggest compliment to him is what you see on Friday, we see Monday through Thursday. Practices extremely hard. He’s one of our hardest workers. He’s gonna practice like it’s a game. So I think that’s kind of helped him out of his success throughout his time over here. He tries to get us motivated in practice and we’ve been asking a lot of them since he’s been a young, 14-year-old freshman to kind of take the reins and lead us and he’s done a really good job with that task.”
Johnson has broken numerous records during the Knights’ postseason run, now holding the LHSAA all-time record for passing yards and total touchdowns. For his senior season, the LSU commit has 3,327 passing yards and 43 touchdowns with 1,297 rushing yards and 22 more touchdowns. However, even with the stats and records, Johnson rewards his teammates for their success alongside him.
“It’s easy playing quarterback when you have a running back in the backfield averaging 200 yards a game,” Johnson said. “Jalen (Noel) does a phenomenal job of ust finding holes and hitting them. He breaks all the tackles like you never see him get tackled one-on-one obviously, he could either run through the tackle or he can get out of the tackle with a stiff arm or something so it’s just a great sidekick. Honestly, just having them right there knowing that they have to respect the run so they can’t have everybody out of the box and just I’m looking for the pass. Same thing with our receivers. We have a great receiver corps that catches everything that I throw. They do a phenomenal job with the route running, and sitting in zones. Then everyone on the offensive line has done a great job protecting. They do a great job. They gave me holes to run in and give Jalen holes to run through, so they do a very good job.”
After winning four straight state championships in the late 2010s, Lafayette Christian returned to the title game last year before falling to STM in what was an instant classic football game. Then, during the regular season this year, the two teams battled it out to a 44-40 finish that favored the Cougars. Now, Landry and the Knights get one more opportunity at Jim Hightower’s dominant STM team.
“We’re excited just to be playing another week,” Landry said. “The last couple of years we’ve been able to experience practicing this week. So it’s something that you don’t take for granted. It was a grind and it was tough to get to this point. The kids are super excited to be able to compete for the state championship again. The seniors have done a lot for this program over the last three years and this year, their fourth year. So we’re excited for them. Hopefully, we can have a great week of practice this week and then come out ready to compete.”
Johnson and the Knights will match up with STM in the Division II Select title game on Saturday at Noon. You can hear the STM broadcast right here on ESPN 103.7 Lafayette.